Injured Making an Arrest, Bear the Police Dog Becomes a Celebrity

Bear, a German shepherd, suffered four cracked teeth and his handler, Vincent Tieniber, hurt his hand in a subway arrest on Tuesday.Credit
Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

He waited by an elevator on the 13th floor of Police Headquarters, the final stop Wednesday in a whirlwind of television appearances and newspaper interviews since his line-of-duty injury the previous day: broken teeth, swollen snout.

So the day went for Bear, a 6-year-old German shepherd with the Transit Bureau, and his handler, Officer Vincent Tieniber, after what had seemed a routine call on Tuesday morning turned into something else.

They were coming to aid an officer who was trying to break up a fight among four women on a subway platform at Lexington Avenue and 59th Street.

“Ninety-nine percent of the time, when we come to the scene, people cooperate,” said Officer Tieniber, 36, who has been on the force for 11 years. “No one really wants to be bit by a dog.”

He “apprehended her foot, and held her” until the officers could handcuff her, Officer Tieniber added.

If the misdemeanors three of the women were charged with were not the usual stuff of New York crime headlines, the dog’s involvement captured the imagination of reporters and the police, who issued a detailed rundown of the events and Bear’s service history.

“Bear and his handler have been in tough spots before,” the department’s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, wrote in an article-length dispatch late Tuesday that described earlier arrests — for robbery and assault — as well as evidence searches aided by “the combination of Officer Tieniber’s handling skills and Bear’s olfactory prowess.”

The episode almost overshadowed a fatal police shooting in Brooklyn early Wednesday. The police said an officer, responding to a robbery in progress, returned fire when a gunman, identified as Thomas Robinson, 50, shot at him and his partner with a .357 Magnum revolver. “It’s a big gun,” Mr. Browne said.

Just before, the officer and his partner saw two men “engaged in a life or death struggle” for the gun in the middle of Hinsdale Street in Brownsville. Officers yelled to the victim to run from the man; as he did so, the gunman fired toward the officers, Mr. Browne said; one officer fired, striking the gunman.

Photo

Bear was expected to get caps for his broken teeth next week.Credit
Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

Detectives later found that Mr. Robinson had been shot twice, once by the officer and once during the struggle; he was pronounced dead shortly afterward. “We believe one of those bullets is going to come back to his own gun,” Mr. Browne said.

The name of the police officer who fired his weapon, a 26-year-old with about five years on the force, was not released. The shooting, like all involving the police, is being investigated by the department.

For Officer Tieniber, meanwhile, the media attention he and Bear received Wednesday was unexpected and a bit overwhelming: five television appearances, several radio interviews and a throng of reporters’ notebooks filling with his every word. “I was just doing my job,” he said, later confiding that he had thought the police shooting would divert attention from his story.

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For his part, Bear stoically bore the regular tugs at his jowls as camera operators and inquisitive fellow officers leaned down to get a look at his cracked canine teeth. “It’s a little sensitive,” the officer said, inspecting his companion. The dog was expected to get caps for his broken teeth — four in all — next week.

“Everybody’s worried about his teeth; how’s your hand?” a lieutenant asked the officer, whose wrist, sprained during the confrontation, was wrapped in an elastic bandage under his dress blue jacket. (Bear wore his usual uniform: a badge, No. TK-27, dangling from his collar.)

“They’ll take it off in a few days,” the officer responded.

“Does he bite?” a man joked in the elevator.

On the job, Bear’s jaws are akin to an officer’s service revolver, Mr. Browne said, and Bear used them “tactically” on Tuesday; his teeth did not penetrate the woman’s shoe.

“It was like he pulled his gun but didn’t fire,” Mr. Browne said. “He did what he’s trained to do, to hold on but not to bite.”

Officer Tieniber said his partner knew the difference well. “At home he’s just like any other dog, hangs around, chews his toy, plays with kids,” said Officer Tieniber, who, like most handlers, takes his dog home in the off-hours. “But at work,” the officer said, “he watches my back, and I watch his. That’s pretty much the same with any K-9 handler around the world.”

He said it had been upsetting to see his partner kicked in the face, his mouth bloodied. “He was barking because she was very loud,” Officer Tieniber said. “When an individual escalates, a dog will escalate with her. They pretty much go on autopilot when there is a threatening situation. They handle it themselves.”

As the pair stood near the entrance to Police Headquarters, an officer came up, cellphone out. “May I take a picture, please?” she asked. Bear obliged.

A version of this article appears in print on June 20, 2013, on Page A22 of the New York edition with the headline: Bear the Police Dog Becomes a Line-of-Duty Celebrity. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe